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All: I've just finished my draft write-up of Sparrows-through-House Sparrow for the quarterly "NS Birds." This is no easy task, and is now made the more onerous by trying to summarize the huge volume of material on E-Bird. Yet that source is and will be of great value as the years go by as a permanent resource, like the Audubon and BSC Christmas Bird Counts (CBC) and the CWS-USFWS Breeding Bird Surveys (BBS), for monitoring our bird populations. It is much less useful, or more difficult to use, than CBC or BBS as an indicator of long-term population trends. However, in preparing my account I produced tentative analyses of seasonal migration patterns of our common "bush" sparrows based on Ken McKenna's periodic counts on Big Merigomish I., and of Am. Goldfinches counted on that Island and by Debbie Stoddart-Pageau at feeders in Timberlea. So, it occurs to me that, while there is little short-term value in entering casual lists from here and there on E-Bird (and really very little use at all in entering common species without numbers), season-long counts of regular birds from frequently birded "favourite patches" (as birders refer to them) throught the province could give us a more dynamic pictures of how birds arrive, move through, and leave. Furthermore, regular backyard (feeder) counts of our regular species (e.g. "winter finches") through the season could give us a clearer picture of changes within and between years of these wanderers. Of course, every datum counts, and one shouldn't discourage entering of any birds you wish. But, other space (and editorial) savings might come if regular birds at given localities were monitored on some a-priori schedule - for example the highest feeder counts on Monday and Friday (or on the weekend) would allow for much combination of counts to produce regional patterns and trends. I hope this plea has been useful. Cheers, Ian Ian McLaren
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